WattsOFF GRID
Start where you are

Self-sufficiency that starts where you are.

Water, power, food and the small enterprises that pay for them — worked out for South African conditions, against South African standards and law, in the climate you actually garden in.

Find your starting point Browse the pillars

The seven pillars

Everything here sits under one of seven headings

Each is built the same way: the system explained, the standards named, and the mistakes that cost people the most set out plainly.

01

Water

Boreholes, tanks, rainwater and greywater. Constructed wetlands, natural ponds, and a swimming pool with no chlorine in it.

BoreholesRainwaterGreywaterWetlandsThe natural pool
02

Power

Solar, batteries and inverters sized to what you actually use, not to what the installer would like to sell you.

SolarBatteriesInvertersSizing it honestlyBackup
03

Grow

Soil first — compost, worms, biochar and mulch. Then permaculture, bed types and which suits your ground, hydroponics and aquaponics.

SoilBeds & systemsPermacultureHydro & aquaponicsWhat grows here
04

Animals

Bees, chickens and fish. What they cost to keep, what they give back, and which species you may legally hold in this province.

BeesChickensFishFeed & housingWhat's legal here
05

The Still Room

Ferment, preserve, store and remedy. Beer, mead and kombucha; canning and bottling; a pantry that rotates rather than rots; the herb bed.

FermentPreserveStoreRemedy
06

Make it Pay

The enterprises that turn a smallholding from a cost into an income — and the honest arithmetic on each one.

Castings & biocharMicrogreensMushroomsHoneyPricing your work
07

Security

Private provision is permanent infrastructure in this country. What it costs to do properly, without the fear-mongering.

PerimeterPower & commsWater securityWhat it costs

Start where you are

You do not need land to begin

Pick the space you actually have. We will show you what it can carry, and what to do first.

01

Windowsill & balcony

Herbs, microgreens and a bokashi bin. The cheapest place to start.

See what fits →
02

Small garden

Four beds, a worm farm, a rain tank and two hens.

See what fits →
03

Suburban plot

Greywater, solar backup, a real compost system, one hive.

See what fits →
04

Small plot

Borehole, off-grid power, orchard, a pond that earns its keep.

See what fits →
05

Smallholding

The whole system — and the enterprises that pay for it.

See what fits →

Latest

From the ground

Every claim here is sourced to a named South African standard, supplier or authority — and where a figure could not be sourced, the page says so.

Cross-section diagram of a domestic borehole showing the wellhead, uPVC casing, submersible pump, rising main, static water level and the delivery line to a storage tank.

Water

What a borehole really costs in inland South Africa

A drilling quote is a rate, not a total. Here is what sits between the two, why the depth is the variable that decides everything, and the sequence that stops you buying the wrong pump.

Cross-section diagram of a stacked worm farm showing the upper working crate with bedding, food layer and cover, drainage holes, and the lower crate acting as a leachate collection sump with a tap.

Grow

Building a worm farm that actually works

Two stacked crates, roughly twenty minutes a week, and it turns the thing you currently throw away into the most valuable soil amendment on the property.

Process diagram of kombucha brewing showing first ferment in an open vessel with SCOBY and cloth cover, then bottling for second ferment, with typical inland South African summer and winter timings marked.

The Still Room

How to make kombucha, and keep it alive through an inland South African summer

The ratio is simple and the method is forgiving. What is not forgiving is our summer — an inland South African January ferments a batch in half the time every recipe on the internet tells you.

Cycle diagram of oyster mushroom cultivation showing substrate pasteurisation, inoculation with spawn, colonisation in the dark, fruiting under humidity and light, and harvest, with the timing of each stage.

Make it Pay

Growing oyster mushrooms as a side income

Three weeks from inoculation to harvest, a substrate most people throw away, and the shortest path to a paying buyer of anything on this site.

The Dispatch

One email a week, from the ground

What we are building, what we have sourced, and what it costs — with the supplier named and the quote dated. No affiliate padding, no doom, no filler.

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